Fate of the Hopeless
by Not Very Cool
Summary: One shot. A prequel to Bittersweet. A glimpse back on the messed up life of Marceline. What keeps the Vampire Queen moving along? What is her cause, what is her goal? And what exactly is the reason Finn already heard her voice? (The story does stand alone fairly well. It does fit what actual Marceline went through for the most part, so just change the ending a bit, and it's good.)


That prequel story to Bittersweet? This is it. (Consider it it's one story if you want, really it doesn't change anything for Actual!Finn)

Here you go.

Gets a tad bit sad along the way, but will possibly have a kind of sweet ending. Meh, depends on how deep you dig into it.

Pretty darn short.

The sad parts are meant to be journal entries. The final bit is supposed to be as it happens.

* * *

What did I do? Why do people hate me? That was the million dollar question. Or the thousand year one. That and why do I continue to go on?

I suppose I should start from the beginning.

I was a little girl. I had seen blood and death. I've seen stuff that nobody should ever see.

* * *

"God help me." A man's voice called out, one of pure agony. There were pieces of the home all around the room. One of the pieces was had the man underneath him. "Help me little girl. Help."

"I'm sorry mister. I can't." I whimpered from the door frame. He wasn't the first to ask for my help. He wasn't the first that I couldn't help at all. Why would anybody let this happen to people? Before he could speak again, I ran. I tried to run away from the pain. The gore.

I stop in the middle of the town's square. I begin to sob. Where was my father, my mother? Why wasn't there anybody to protect me?

"Daddy... Daddy..." I mumbled.

A man with the same strange skin color as myself, with a backpack and strange key chain thingie stopped as he saw me. He ran to the toy store and grabbed one of the few toys that wasn't completely destroyed.

That man brought the toy, something that looked like a pink sock monkey, and gave it to me. I couldn't help but smile.

"Don't cry little girl. No matter what, now you have two friends." He said as he grabbed his backpack and put it back on. "Mine's Simon. His is... I didn't ask him, why don't you?"

I did, and it 'said' it's name was Hambo, and I told him mine.

"Hambo? That's a nice name, not as nice as Marceline though. I suppose Hambo wants to come along with us?" He asked, looking off in a direction, trying to figure out if he deemed it safe enough.

"Where are we going, Mister Simon?" I looked away from my new toy and up at the man. He was the first person I had seen that wasn't crushed, blown to bits, or worse.

"I think we should head out-of-town, that way." He pointed away from where I had come from. It was slightly less destroyed than the rest of the town, but that was like saying that World War I was slightly less worse than World War II. "What does Hambo think of that plan?"

"Hambo likes that plan." I sniffed my nose one last time and smiled.

"Let's get a move on then." He said, and we began to walk out of the aftermath of humanity's greatest failure.

* * *

"So Marceline, do you want anything to eat?" He asked after setting up camp for the night. The forest was less devastated, but there was still the air of destruction there.

"No." I told him, but my stomach rumbled and then I added, "But Hambo does."

"Would Hambo like an apple?" Simon pulled out a red apple from a pocket in his backpack, and I accept it and bite into it.

"Why aren't you eating anything?" I questioned, seeing Simon just sitting down near the campfire he had started.

"I never really liked apples, and I'm not hungry, I haven't really been in a while." He glanced down at his key chain thing and then looked back up. I suppose he thought I didn't catch that.

"So where are you from Simon?" I asked after waiting a few moments for him to continue talking. He smiled a strange smile.

"I don't think it really matters now, but I'm from Scandinavia. Originally. Moved here when I was a small boy, and only just went back on business."

"Business?"

"I'm a... Well you wont know the technical name, but I look for artifacts. Sort of like buried treasure."

"Like a pirate?" He chuckled and shook his head.

"More like an adventurer. I look for stuff others have forgotten about. I don't steal." As I finished the apple, I threw the core into the darkness of the woods.

"Simon?"

"Yes Marceline?" Simon was concerned, but all I wanted to do was ask him a question.

"Do you think that things will ever be like they were before, Hambo wants to know." I looked down at Hambo, and tears were flowing from my eyes once more. "I miss mommy and daddy."

"I, I don't know Marceline. I hope that one day that things can be like before the war, but I don't think everything will be like it was before. I suppose that what I'm saying is that I think that it might be like before, but it wont be exactly like it was. I'm sorry about your parents. We have to continue though. They wouldn't want you crying about them, they would want you to survive. Sorry for not sugar coating it... There's no point trying to keep things from you. You deserve to know my honest opinion." Simon took off his glasses and began to clean them, letting his words sink in for himself as well as for me.

"Hambo's sad now." I began to cry. Simon sighed and look down at the ground.

"I think that all life is now is sad times. Just stay strong Marceline. For my sake, and for Hambo's." He stood up and walked over to me and sat down. "Do you like music?" He asked.

"Yeah." I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled.

"How about I teach you how to play... I don't have any instruments on me, but I do have a music player. Do you want to listen?" He dug around in his bag for a few moments and eventually pulled out a cd player. Inside was a white cd that just said 'music'.

"Betty never did like my choice in music. I suppose I'm just a bit more of an underground listener than she was."

"Betty." I asked, and it was Simon's turn to feel sad.

"She's not with me anymore. She was my fiancé though." Simon hid his emotions as he closed the lid to the cd player and the music played.

It was different from most of the music mom played for me. This was people who sounded mad, not soft and gentle. What they sang about wasn't anything like what mom would play. It was a good kind of unknown though. It wasn't horrible.

"Again, sorry for not having anything more appropriate for a kid." He commented, but when I looked up with a grin, he smiled too.

"Hambo thinks it isn't that bad. They just sound mad."

"Hambo's pretty observant then."

* * *

Simon wasn't here anymore, in his place was a crazy man, a cold, angry man.

"Simon?" I was crying, I tried to snap him out of it, I saw the key chain thing on his head, and realized it was an actual crown.

"Simon's gone little girl. I don't deal with crybabies, I only care about princesses. They wont want to talk to me when I have a sniveling little kid wandering behind me. Go away, shoo!" The thing that had replaced Simon said. "Take that backpack too. I don't need it anymore."

And so the common theme of my immortal life began. Being rejected. Being alone.

The middle part of my story... could probably be summed up in one horrible, horrible afternoon.

It was after I had been bit by a vampire, granting me true immortality.

* * *

"I'm sorry about Bonnibel. I didn't mean to do it! I was like a big sister to Bonnibel! You can't do this to me after I screw up one freaking time!" I was crying once more. It appeared that that was the one thing that was guaranteed to happen throughout my whole life.

"It doesn't matter if you're sorry. You have to be reprimanded for your crimes, which whether or not accidental, is exactly what you did. I'm sorry Marceline, but you're banished from the Candy Kingdom." The queen looked sorry, but her words told me that she was just trying to save her own ass. It had ceased being about our friendship, our almost sisterly bond, and now was all about ruling by the book, and looking favorable to her subjects.

"Fine. I suppose that I'm not wanted in this crappy kingdom. It was getting boring anyway. Peace out losers." I floated away, but I knew that today would be high up there in my list of shitty days.

I floated out of the castle and saw the citizens of the kingdom back away from me in fear. I suppose that the citizens would have hated me one way or another, but I thought the queen would have been smarter than to let their common opinion on me ruin our friendship. One mess up and trumped-up charges. Total bullshit.

As I left the kingdom, I began to just fly around to random houses that I had taken up residence over the years. I tried to find good memories when I went to each one, all were bad. I finally floated to my current house.

"Why? Why am I so damn hopeless? Why can't I ever be happy for one moment. I'm not a monster like those candy fools think I am. I'm not a kid like Simon thinks I am. What's wrong with me?" I slammed my fist on the counter as my then boyfriend Ash walked in. I was hoping that the day was going to get a bit better.

"Hey babe. Guess what!" He had a grin on his face.

"What?"

"You know that toy you had?" His grin widened. Maybe he had actually fixed it. "I traded it to this witch for this cool new cherry blossom wand."

"What? Why?!" I yelled.

"It's because a person's most prized possession is the most valuable to use in spells, Marceline." He then conjured a ghost that began calling me 'not a genius'. How could he be such an asshole? What had I saw in him?

"Get out Ash." I tried to keep calm, but he wasn't expecting this reaction, because he tried to reason with me.

"Wait babe."

"You're a psycho jerk and ruined the last thing that made me happy in my life! IT'S OVER, YOU PSYCHO!" I yelled as I swung my axe-bass at his head, and he fled.

Afterwards I opened my fridge and pulled out the thirst thing that would numb the pain. I didn't care what.

Nobody cared for Marceline, the Vampire Queen.

Why should I?

* * *

So why do people hate me? I suppose it's because I'm not as perfect as the other "royalty" of Ooo, and make some mistakes that anybody hum... anybody who ever lived did. Maybe it's because I use my powers to scare people away from me before they can hurt me?

I look at the moon above me as I sit on a branch in a tree in the forest outside the Candy kingdom, getting ready to play my guitar. I hear a noise that breaks my train of thought though.

"Wha?" I fly down to look and see a small child lying naked on a leaf. He was obviously a boy. He was also crying. I suppose he was abandoned. "Sorry kid, I don't think you'll have very many friends if I took you in, no matter how rad I am. You'll have to wait for somebody else."

The baby's still crying though, and it was just so... Sad. I suppose I could try to cheer it up. I try to remember the song that my mother used to sing to me as I cried as a small child. As the song comes back to me fully, I smile. I suppose that it wasn't impossible for someone to love me.

"Hush, little baby, don't say a word.  
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won't sing,  
Mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring..." I sing, and along the way, the baby boy, with a weird hat on, slowly stops crying. By the time I finish the song, the kid's asleep.

I hear voices coming along the way towards me and the kid. I fly up back to the tree branch and watch as the events unfold.

The carriage stops when it comes across the baby. Out steps Bonnibel's mom. Right behind her is Bonnibel.

"Look at this poor baby Bonnie. I can't believe someone would be so callous to leave it out here alone. At least they had the decency to do it while the baby was asleep. I couldn't think of anybody cold enough to leave a baby crying for its mother in the forest." Bonnibel's mother tells her. I suppose that she taught her to have a heart, unlike the way _she_ ruled.

"What are we going to do, mother?" The toddler asks

"I think... I think you have a new brother, Bonnie. This note says his name's Finn. So say hi to Finn." She says, and Bonnibel does so. I nearly hiss at the woman. I keep my head together though, and as the queen picks up the baby, and then gets back into the carriage with her daughter. I sigh.

Not my first choice for a kid to have as a mother. But I suppose she would treat him well. If not, I could probably check on him myself. And if not that, I could probably get Bonnibel to tell me about him eventually. The queen may hate me, but there was still one candy thing that didn't. Two now, I guess.

I suppose why I continue to go on is to give hope to those that can have it.

I suppose that's the fate of the hopeless.

"See ya kid." I whisper as I begin to play my guitar once more, looking back towards the moon as the carriage disappears from my view. I hope that kid turns out to have a happier life than me.

* * *

Fairly short. And vague on why Marceline was banned from the kingdom! Will we ever find out? Not here!

Marceline's mad at Bubblegum's (and Finn's) mother. Does that make her evil? Only in Marceline's eyes. She's not actually an evil queen. She's just not perfect. Meh, I suppose Bittersweet will explain that better than I can in an Author's Note.

So much sadness for Marceline. Hope the end made up for all that though.

Now that this is done, back to the main story!


End file.
